Love is a FullBlown War
by CelticDaemonWitch
Summary: There was a big war between the mages and the Dark Sorceress. Now, years and years later, they're still picking up the pieces. [AdrianeZach]
1. Astral Messages

((Anna: I think it's about time I get restarted on my updating here XD I've just been having a writer's block for Darkness Before the Dawn, and not a very large urge to write Avalon: Web of Magic. Maybe that new book that's coming out will give me some motivation. I doubt it, though, since Dreamer doesn't exist in my version... Anyway, this is not meant to be a story. It was not intended to be long. It was meant to be a little intermission of pure emotion, with no substantial plot. This is set six, seven years after the defeat of the Dark Soceress. Maybe there will be other chapters, to explain what happened to Emily and Kara... and Zach.  
  
Disclaimer: Avalon is not mine, but its not yours, either. Ha!))  
  
Love is a Full Blown War  
  
A short story  
  
She stared up at the stars. Once, she had asked her mother how many there were, since she was too young to count high enough to include them all. The older woman had not answered for a long time, and her daughter began to wonder if she had somehow offended the sensitive artist. But finally, her soft voice said that when the stars flash their brilliance, twinkled and winked like they knew some big secret, they were in fact delivering a short, sweet message from somebody in the the spirit world: "I love you".  
  
Now, fifteen years later, that same child watched the night sky from a completely different angle she had when she was four years old. They were the same stars, she knew that much, she was just looking at them from the soil of another planet. The familiar sounds of night-time Aldenmor wilderness filled her ears, the pine forest scent mixed with magic and animal musk drifted like perfume through her nose. This place was her home now, she never had a duty to Earth once her mistwolf soulmate died. So she had ventured into the wild that both soothed and thrilled her.  
  
Her parents probably didn't care. They were too busy making money somewhere in the States, ignoring each other and the little girl they had made together. Boy, would they be in for a surprise when they called the Wildlife Preserve only to discover that their daughter had chosen to live a life with the animals and did not wish to be bothered with human company. At least, that was the story she had asked her grandmother to tell them.  
  
She rolled onto her side, eyeing the tattered edge of the blanket she was sleeping on. Her Elfish friends had made this for them, and it was of the finest fairy material there was. Most of the magical creatures had something to donate to the warrior mage and the dragonkeeper on the celebration day. He said he would be back. That he would share this bed with her again. She had promised she would wait forever. And she meant it. Nothing would get in the way. He had promised that when they died -- for he had never admitted that they could die apart -- they would be old and gray and surrounded by children and grandchildren.  
  
He had held her close before he left; close enough so that she could hear his heart beat. He had spoke to her that last time, spoke to her of a future they could never have.  
  
He showed her a world where Aldenmor was peaceful. Where everyone grew with trust and guidance from even strangers, where to doubt would bet to open yourself to the Black Magic. He showed her a world where Elves cared for griffins, where imps stole nothing but the hearts of the pixies. Where mistwolves ran alongside unicorns, weaving magic and helping Aldenmor grow. Where humans were trusted.  
  
He showed her his home, the treehouse Okawa, weathered with age but still springy and youthful thanks to the love it grew between its branches. He showed her a perfectly imperfect family, a family that he knew would appeal to her, the family he knew she had dreamed of but now could never have. In their fantasy, he gave her what she always wanted; a daughter to call Stormbringer.  
  
She rolled back onto her back, since the pine needles that sprinkled the blanket made her elbows itch. It made her smile -- something in all this remained the same. Life would go on. And she had no choice but to go with it. It wouldn't stop for her to ask for directions. The road she had in front of her she didn't reconize, but she would learn. By herself. He had always said she was independent and brilliant.  
  
But he would never tell her that again. He wouldn't ever sleep with her on their very blanket, or tell her stories of his childhood, or even better, the future he planned to have with her. Never again would he question her about things like 'TV' and 'shampoo'. Never would she kiss him for some sweet, special gift he had known would get to her heart.  
  
"I promised forever, Zach," Adriane whispered to the sky. "And I will wait."  
  
And, high in the dark blanket of night, she thought she saw a star wink in return.  
  
((There. Please, no heavy flames. I'm a very sensitive girl... But do review! *big puppy eyes*  
  
See this button? This is a very good button. Press the pretty button...))  
  
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	2. Splash of Red against the Ice

((A/n: I have no idea where I'm going to take this story. The first chapter came from a spur of sentimental and somewhat depressive feelings. But since you liked it, and I left things rather vague, I think I will continue. My writer's block for Darkness Before the Dawn is still in effect, other than I know who is possessing Adriane to go after Kara. I still warn you, though. This story has no plot. It is a mere collection of ideas that I could tie into one another.  
  
Disclaimer: They are not mine. But if you have the power to give them to me... *worship*))  
  
Love is a Full-Blown War  
  
A short story  
  
The porch was slippery and treacherous, but Emily had done this many times before. One could not live in the northeast unless they knew how to deal with the snow, along with the tricky ice that immediatly formed in your way. The woman shivered as the December breeze bit right through her tights, making goosebumps prickle up along her legs as she walked down the quiet neighborhood, her eyes on the rather small, two-story house that was second to last on the lane. It had been a gift to her family from the city council members, awarded to her for such oustanding effort and volunteer work and overall love she gave to the Ravenswood Wildlife Preserve.  
  
But Ravenswood was closed now. It had been for many years. It was old and rusty and abandoned, and it had been sheer luck they hadn't bulldozed it down. Ravenswood is what put Stonehill on the map, Emily thought, glancing down at the frosty tips of the stubborn grass that still grew in these yards. Ravenswood is what made this town prosper. And now it was gone. Closed away from the world.   
  
Often, she had wondered why they had insisted on closing the entire park. There was still plenty to see without the main attractions, like Ariel and Lyra. After Adriane's great-grandmother had died, though, it seemed as if they had no choice but to shut it down. Not for lack of people to run it. Emily herself had volunteered to take over running the tourist site. But the idea had been vetoed, and so the mystical place had been shut down. Nobody lived there anymore, except the squirrels and rats and birds who had made their homes there for generations.  
  
No, once Aldenmor had been sealed off from Earth and the portals that connected the two worlds closed eternally or rerouted to someplace else that needed the magic, Ravenswood folded up.  
  
Emily sighed, pausing at the walk up to her own house. She'd managed to hold on to it after her mother had died, and pay the rent along with the electricity and water bills every month. She thought this was pretty impressive, seeing as she was only nineteen, but at the same time independent enough to do that. She lifted her head to take in the sight of what was rightfully hers now, glowing orange against the sunset. She chuckled, remembering the arguement she'd had with her housemate over what color they were going to paint the outside. She'd wanted something that wouldn't attract very much attention, but he wanted it to be loud and happy, and all the colors of the rainbow. They had decided to leave it the way it was, a pale pumpkin orange.  
  
The redheaded woman walked up the path, stopping again as she came to the porch. It had a suspicious gleam to it that warned her she should be careful. But again, she knew how to handle it. Doing her dance up the porch and succeeding without slipping, Emily dug around in the pocket of her autumn jacket for her keys. Even though it was already winter, she had nothing heavier than a windbreaker. She hoped she would be getting a better coat for Christmas, but she wasn't counting on it.  
  
Finding the keys, she unlocked the door and stepped inside, letting both the physical warm and the emotional warm spread over her body as she entered her house and shut the door behind her, listening to the frustrated howl of the wind as it slammed into the barrier between her and it. She smiled to herself, shrugging off her jacket and purse and hanging them up on the hook next to the door. The air was tinged with the unbearably fresh smell of sausage, cheese and tomato sauce, and she heard the faint drone of the TV going upstairs.  
  
Filling her lungs, she shouted one of her favorite phrases of all time, "I'm home!"  
  
A sharp clanging noise came from the kitchen, accompanied the crash of a chair tipping over. Emily smiled at the immediate reply, "Do you have company?" It always returned her shout, reguardless of where she had come home from. She was famous for taking in strays, or somebody that needed a home for a night, or someplace to stay while they got back on their feet and could rent an apartment.   
  
"Not tonight, love," she answered, walking down the hall and into the kitchen. As she had thought, there were two medium pan pizzas open on the counter, and a stool lay carelessly tossed across the lineolium. She chuckled. "You're safe."  
  
A head popped up, a mop of untamed rusty brown hair framing a sheepishly grinning face. It was not often that that that face wasn't stretched into a grin of some sort. Immediatly, Emily felt better, just seeing that vaguely childish but always optimistic expression. He was such a goof sometimes, but she really loved him.  
  
He stood, pulling the fallen stool with him, then in a spurt of chilvary, offered it to her. Emily laughed a little and propped herself up on it, pulling a box of pizza towards her and grabbing a slice, not even bothering to fish out a paper plate or at least a napkin. "You know, if you keep doing this, we're going to go bankrupt."  
  
"I thought you were a waitress," he countered, leaning on the stool next to hers and resting his chin on his knuckles, holding a beanie in one hand. "Why do you always come home so hungry?"  
  
She looked up at him as she sunk her perfectly white teeth into the pizza, one hand automatically coming up to catch the dribble of oil that trickled out of the cheese as she did so. She chewed slowly, not answering his question as she watched him place the beanie back where he had madly grabbed for it. They had several head-covers like it lying around the house, carefully tucked away so they weren't always in the way, but in grabbing distance. In case she had brought company home.   
  
Her eyes trailed from his hands, smooth and delicate, up to the sides of his head, from which spiraled his ears, falling back to a sharp tip. They were too long for him to hide in his hair, so he had all sorts of hats to hide them under. Emily knew how much her Elf housemate hating hiding his ears, and how uncomfortable wearing head-covers made him. But she also knew that he knew what it took to be able to live a normal Earthen live.... with her. She had always felt kind of guilty for drawing him away from his world and his rightful people, but he'd often told her it didn't matter. He loved her more than anything Aldenmor could have given him. Besides, what was a place in Farthingdale compared to pizza?  
  
"I was about to apologize for being late," she said, after she swallowed.  
  
He looked up at her, his mahogany eyes soft. "Working overtime again?"  
  
She nodded, a her lips peeling back into a grin. "Somebody's gotta pay for this," she said, gesturing to the pizza.  
  
He laughed good-naturedly, moving over and wrapping his arms around her waist, tugging her down from the stool. "Leave it," he told her as she twisted her arm around at an odd angle to avoid getting pizza sauce on him. She snatched a napkin and abandoned her half-finished slice of pizza to it, very aware that while she did that, his breath was warm against the chilled skin of her neck.  
  
He pulled her away from the kitchen altogether and into the living room. She protested as the two of them fell into a tangled heap on the couch, "But I was still hungry! The pizza's going to get cold."  
  
He chuckled, his arms tightening around her, having moved from her waist to right below her breasts. "I thought that was what microwaves were supposed to be for."  
  
Very self-conscious by this point, she asked him suspiciously, "Are you hitting on me?"  
  
The Elf chuckled again, "Perhaps later. Like after you change out of that ridiculous outfit."  
  
"Well, excuse me. It's not like I have a choice of uniform." Emily glanced down at herself, again aware of his legs twined with hers and his arms still around her. She had on a very tacky plaid skirt over a pair of worn black tights, completed with a crisp white blouce underneath a red wine blazer. It wasn't the most flattering outfit Emily had ever worn, especially since the blazer clashed rather unpleasantly with her auburn hair.  
  
"Why did you have to become a waitress?" he murmured, his lips moving against her neck. "You could have been something so much better, like a vet or even a doctor. Something that pays better and makes you happy."  
  
"I am a healer, love," she answered, just as quietly. "I still heal. Just because it doesn't pay doesn't mean it isn't what I want to do with my life. Besides, I like waitressing."  
  
They'd talked about this many times before. "Why?"  
  
The answer was always the same. "Because I rest assured that no matter what happens, no matter how many wars we'll have, or whether the existance of magic is discovered world-wide, the earth will always have a need for good strong dependable waitresses who can balance five platters of hot food on her arm and juggle seventeen orders in her head and smile even when things aren't going well."  
  
He never had anything more to argue with. They lay there in silent companionship for a while longer, with him resting his cheek against her smooth red hair and her leaning back into his solid warmth.  
  
Finally, she said, "I miss them."  
  
"Who?"  
  
"Them... them all, really. Ariel, Balthazar, Ronif and Rasha, those crazy d'flies, Phel. And Lorelei. I definitely miss Lorelei. And her precious Unicorn Academy. Oh, they were so cute..." Her voice caught on the word cute, and it came out a half-strangled sob. She turned a little in his arms, her fingers clutching the fabric of his out-of-fashion shirt against the force of her sorrow. He said nothing, gently stroking her hair, and then just simply holding her when her body shuddered with sobs. Her rainbow jewel, its cord whethered from the years, flashed, and was returned by the stone that hung around his neck.  
  
"But I miss Adriane and Kara the most. Why did they have to be torn from me! What did I do to deserve this?!"  
  
The Elf slid his slender fingers under her chin, tipping her head up so he could wipe her hot tears away with a simple stroke of his thumbs, her cheeks cupped in his palms. "I know, Emily. I miss them just as much. But Adriane chose to remain behind. She believed she belonged more to Aldenmor and the magic than she did to anything Earth could give her. It was her idea to cut Aldenmor away from Earth in the first place. You saved both Earth and Aldenmor by doing that."  
  
"How do you know? How do you know that Aldenmor isn't a big charred ember floating out there in space?"  
  
"Because even if she had won the war, the Dark Socceress wouldn't do that to her kingdom. Even if she could secure all the magic in Avalon, she still needs subjects to force into submission. She wouldn't destroy Avalon."  
  
"You're so cheerful," she sniffled, managing a little smile.  
  
He smiled back. "I know."  
  
They were quiet for a little while longer, before Emily whispered, "But what about Kara? I don't think staying in Aldenmor was what she had planned. She had so much to live for here. Pretty, blonde, popular. She had it all going for her. Then, wham! A chance at a normal life is completely destroyed, and she had no choice but to stay on Aldenmor."  
  
He sighed. "That may be true, but you know Kara. She'll sulk around and feel sorry for herself for about a month, then she'll bounce back with terrific force and take utter charge of everything. She'll overwork herself for another month, then have a mental breakdown. And that's when she'll find her true center for who she is. She's fine, wherever she is. Besides, they need her on Aldenmor. She is the blazing mage. She's already saved their hineys without blinking twice before."  
  
Emily's grip relaxed, and she glanced up at him again. He smiled down at her, tilting his head a little in order to kiss her tenderly. Emily felt her sorrow drain away. She may have lost so much of what was precious to her -- all the animals, Ravenswood, Adriane and Kara, her smart, funny, beautiful mother, Carolyn. But she still had one very important key to her heart. Him.  
  
"I love you, Ozzie," she told him when they broke apart.  
  
His eyes softened, and with a soft kiss to her forehead, he replied, "I love you too, Emily. Now and forever."  
  
Again, they rested in silence, two long, grown figures twined together in a bond more deeper than anything magic had accomplished before. Then Ozzie kissed the top of her head and said, "Now, why don't you go and change, and I'll go reheat your pizza."  
  
She chuckled. "I don't think so, Fluffy. I don't trust you with the microwave. You put the rest of the pizza in the fridge. I moved the Ziplocs. They're under the sink now."  
  
Ozzie heaved a dramatic sigh. "Yes, O Mage. I am but your lowly servant..."  
  
She reached around his lean figure to snatch a pillow and whap him with it. "You little--!"  
  
He silenced her with a searing kiss, one hand curled around the back of her neck to keep her from moving her head. The pillow dropped, neglected, from her grip, and her eyes fluttered closed.  
  
They didn't move for a while.  
  
((There you go ^_^ Longer than the last one and not quite so vague. I truly don't know where it came from... Ozzie and Emily? Did I hit my head too hard on the hearth while getting my Christmas stocking or something? X_X  
  
Anyway, hope you like. *crosses fingers and hopes against hope*  
  
Ja ne! Until next chapter! I think in the next chapter I'll actually answer some questions about what happened to Zach . I feel really bad about not doing that this chapter, but I needed to do something Earthen. Please forgive me!  
  
Or, better yet, review!)) 


	3. Aquamarine

((A/N: Okay, here's the excuse I made for myself: I haven't been working on these fics because I sent my Avalon series to a friend in Canada for her to read, and therefore, even when I had a faint idea of a plot, I couldn't write it down because I didn't have the resources. Here's the actual reason: I'm lazy. While I dearly love each review, it's not enough to get me working again XD Sorry, people!  
  
Well, I take that back. This is dedicated to the reviewer who gave me the following suggestions! You know who you are! .  
  
And so here it is, the third chapter of Love is a Full-Blown War. There's not a whole lot of dialogue, just Kara's depressing thoughts, so bear with her XD  
  
Disclaimer: I shall own Avalon: Web of Magic one day! I swear it! Windy: pokes Celtic's belly Celtic: deflates with a pathetic wheeze))  
  
Love is a Full-Blown War  
  
A short story  
  
Once upon a time, Kara Davies had been convinced a lot of things were rock-solid in her future. Her good looks had to get her somewhere famous. She was always going to be popular. She was going to marry Brad Pitt, and having children would never ruin the way she looked in a swim suit.  
  
She'd always been convinced she had all the time in the world to accomplish her destiny.  
  
But time was enemy. Time, when he was working side-by-side with his villainous sister Luck, took on an air of cruelty unsurpassed by any military group in the Congo. He was reputable for taking the trust one placed it in him and tearing it to shreds like a bad report card.  
  
And that's exactly what he had done to Kara.  
  
Rain pelted her body, fresh water rolling down her skin like hot trails of acid. Her hair, once the color of a sunlit beach, now clung to her neck and shoulders in damp clumps that weighed her down more than any pack might. Her clothes, stitched by the fabulous fairy weavers, adhered to her still youthful figure, their brilliant luster dimmed dramatically by the torment of the storm.  
  
Kara ignored all of that. It didn't matter anymore. Time had taken his toll on her, sucked her dry, tripped her up, all other silly metaphors her negatively-tuned thoughts could pick up.  
  
The blazing star mage went right on walking. The grass squelched in protest under her bare feet, and the curtain of rain in front of her refused to part and tell her what was ahead, but she already knew. She knew it as well as she knew her past, as well as she knew who had slivers of her sought-after heart. For ahead was the shapeless thing called the future.  
  
Ahead was the ocean.  
  
A long, long time ago (had it really only been four years?), there had been a war in Aldenmor. A macabre series of battles that resulted in many lives lost, but what war did not come with the price of many? To this day, Kara could never be sure they had actually won. They had gotten what they wanted out of it; a secure freedom, the knowledge that the next generation would grow up in a world that came with the highest safety rating for the roller coaster known as life.  
  
But Adriane had lost Zach (that sounded so cruel, Kara mused. Like she just suddenly misplaced him. No, been torn from works better), who had become the most important asset of her life that rough year. Everything, even Kara and Emily and the legendary connection they shared took second rate next to the warrior mage's special bond with the only human boy left on Aldenmor.  
  
They had lost all connection with Earth, but that was not a sudden development. It had taken time, throughout the war, for portal after portal to wither up and die, leaving the pathways to her homeworld stale and nontreadable. When the final portal went, it severed her completely from the life she'd always thought was served to her on a silver platter. The life she immediately grew to value, once she couldn't have it.  
  
"If I had the choice, would I had gone back before the portals died?" she inquired of herself in a whisper, though her voice was lost amongst the sacrificial drumming of the rain. "Of course I would have. Everything I was secure in was back there. The true question was, if I had known what was going to happen to me if I stayed, would I have left anyway?"  
  
It was a question she asked herself often, and though she had thought about it many times, she could never give herself a straight, honest answer.  
  
For Kara had not been given the choice to stay or leave. Emily had seen the danger before it got out of hand, and had made the decision to go home to Ravenswood, where she set up a sort of hospital for wounded soldiers who came to her from all sorts of battles, with all sorts of injuries. She had never failed to make each one of them brand new.  
  
At the very end, Adraine had been fighting alone. It was she who drove the stake through the dark witch's heart, she who made every heart-wrenching sacrifice, she to whom Aldenmor truly owed their victory. It was a spotlight Kara had wanted from the moment she agreed to fight, but she only held the fame within her own heart.  
  
For, in a heated moment, she had messed up, and as a consequence, she was cursed into the form of a mermaid, and any hope of returning to Earth was crushed. It was only through quick thinking and action on part of Adriane and the d'flies that she had made it to the ocean before she dried up into a pile of thin green dust.  
  
For the next two years, Kara had lived the faithful life of a mermaid. At first, she had been heartbroken and chronically depressed, convinced that life as she knew it was over. And it was, but from that crack right down the center of her existence blossomed a new light, a new love. A new sense of self that struck a chord of harmony somewhere within her untouchable soul.  
  
As time went on, the blazing star found herself falling more deeply in love with her new people. After the war, they relaxed from their stern, proud warrior stances she'd mistaken for their true natures. Humor enveloped each heart, and almost every night, she could find them gathered in the village square, singing and dancing and playing on their artfully crafted instruments. Even though sunlight barely reached the depths at which they lived, their tails always gleamed like an intense ray was shining upon them, their scales rippling with every movement they made. Their hair, with almost every color of the rainbow present, glimmered around them in a tye-dye swirl of delightful colors. Their happiness was infectious, and it wasn't long before Kara gave her tail an expert flip and found herself among the throng.  
  
It was one such night that Kara met him. He had been deemed too wild and unpredictable to serve as a soldier during the war, but he listened so intently to Kara's recounts of the battles she had been in that the blazing star feel like she had been part of something so revolutionary, it would made Aldenmor history. It made her feel like her sacrifice had been worth it.  
  
His name was Alijas.  
  
%Flashback%  
  
Kara poked her face out of the water, and immediately, the warm air stung her lungs, and she coughed violently against the oxygen. The sunlight on her pale turquoise skin made her feel like she was standing just a bit too close to a powerful light bulb.  
  
"It takes a little getting used to," he told her, and his copper eyes fairly sparkled with laughter, like freshly-shined pennies place neatly in his skull. "But I think it's nice, compared to the dark and dreary of the old folk's sanctuary down there," he wrinkled his nose in a vaguely childish fashion.  
  
It was something that Kara liked about him. Most of the merfolk who had first advised her on living their life had held many resemblances to her irksome Social Studies teacher. Not somebody that she wished to hang around longer than necessary. But Alijas wasn't like that. He didn't think twice before acting way younger than he was. He'd once told her that he still sometimes protested to eating his healthy greens at dinnertime.  
  
Furthermore, he seemed to understand what Kara was going through. He realized how much she had taken her life for granted, before she lost it, and he gave her the exact kind of sympathy she had needed. More often that not, Kara found herself over at his place, even way early in the morning when she couldn't sleep, talking for ages.  
  
Needless to say, his parents weren't too fond of her, but it wasn't like they were going to tell the Princess of Avalon to leave them alone.  
  
"Kara, look!" Alijas exclaimed abruptly, gliding closer to shore and reaching out with his thinly-webbed hand to snatch at something in the sand there. He studied it for a moment, before holding it up for her to see.  
  
It was a necklace, the blazing star discovered, as she came closer to inspect it. It looked exactly like the pearl necklace that her mother often wore when going on public television while her father made a big speech. Something was off, though.  
  
"Magic?" Alijas inquired, running his fingers over the milky yellow beads. Kara glanced up at him, and something hot shot through her belly as she noticed how close their faces were. She had to order herself to focus before she found any sort of coherent reply available.  
  
"It seems that way. What kind of spell would be imbedded in a pearl necklace?"  
  
He gave her a funny look. "Pearl?" the word rolled off his tongue with an air of unfamiliarity, as if he was speaking Swahili instead of perfect English. "No, Kara, this is oyster. Aldenmor oyster shells."  
  
The mermaid found a dark blue blush spread up her cheeks. And she claimed to be the queen of jewelry, and she couldn't tell the difference between pearl and oyster! She definitely had some studying to do when she got back.  
  
If she got back.  
  
She gave her head a firm shake to rid herself of such a thought, only to find that while she had been scolding herself, her companion had slyly slipped behind her, and she jumped as she felt the cool of the oyster shells against her neck, heard the soft clacking noise as they collided with her unicorn jewel. He clasped it more expertly than she probably could have, as if he had done this before.  
  
Kara pulled her carefully-groomed mane of golden hair out from under the necklace, as Alijas maneuvered himself to get a better look at his handiwork. Their tails bumped together, and Kara's face betrayed her as she blushed again, but he seemed rather unfazed.  
  
"It looks beautiful on you," the merman told her solemnly, nodding sagely as if he had just spoke a prophecy and not the words Kara had grown up hearing from her parents and shallow school friends. "Of course," he added offhandedly. "Everything looks beautiful on you."  
  
Now, for a long time, Kara had been turning heads at school. Boys she never even knew could tie their own shoelaces were suddenly giving her somewhat foxy compliments as she walked past them in the hall. She had grown used to members of the opposite sex throwing the word beautiful at her.  
  
But as sappy as it sounded, she didn't get the feeling that Alijas meant it the way they had. Something, something she couldn't place her finger on told her that he was saying it TO her, not at her. That he actually meant what he was saying. That he thought she was beautiful, inside and out.  
  
And so, when she felt his webbed hand on her waist, and the soft moistness of his mouth on hers in a vaguely salty-tasting kiss, she knew it wasn't because he had a sudden flood of testosterone. He was serious.  
  
And Kara... Kara was happy.  
  
%End Flashback%  
  
A particularly noisy clap of thunder brought the nineteen-year-old sharply back to her senses. She could still feel the fishy taste of his kiss, each of his fingers, separate and distinct, cool against her hot cheeks, years later. It haunted her, whenever she started thinking of the merfolk, or back when she thought she was happy, when she had doses of confidence that everything was going to be okay, simply because he was at her side.  
  
And then, on one stormy night not unlike the one she was currently in, everything had changed. Again.  
  
To this day, after all her tedious thinking, the blazing star mage had yet to figure out why in tarnation had a couple of renegade imps kidnapped the illegitimate son of dwarf Queen Praxia, and then tossed him overboard into the ocean in the middle of a storm. For, not only would they face the wrath of a very angry mountain queen, they would get the merfolk mad at them for polluting their carefully-cleaned waters.  
  
Exactly that had been done. Victory or no victory, there was always danger present in Aldenmor. Even if the danger had an IQ of -3.  
  
More than once, Kara had wished she was Emily. It must be nice, she thought miserably, to be able to heal those close to you, and not have to sacrifice their lives into another's hands in the hope that they'll do a better job than you can.  
  
Other times, she wished she had never followed Alijas that night. Her magical senses had told her something bad was going to happen, but she had disregarded her jewel's warning and taken after him anyway, when he went shooting for the surface with a speed he rarely demonstrated.  
  
Only to watch helplessly as the imps ran him through with a spear for attempting to rescue the drowning dwarf child.  
  
He had not died instantly. He had the time to discover his plight, to admit there was nothing he could do, and to tell that to her as the three of them -- Kara, Alijas, and the child -- bobbed along on the surface while thunder and lightning crashed around them. He had the time to tell her not to try and contact her friends, as she filled her lungs to cry for the d'flies. But in the end, he had no time at all.  
  
Mouth filled with the awful steel taste of her life crashing down around her, Kara had beached herself, where only waves at high tide could reach her. She had wanted to let go of everything, and just drop off the face of the earth, crawl into some dark hole and shut out the rest of the world as it went by without her.  
  
But the factor she had not counted on was the dwarf child she'd dragged with her. He fled the moment he could put his feet on the shore, and the blazing star had hardly noticed, her world was spinning so bad.  
  
%Flashback%  
  
"Zach, wait up! These old legs don't move that fast!"  
  
For a moment, Kara wondered if she was truly going nuts. It wouldn't surprise her. Maybe she'd dreamed the whole war and all the magic and being a mermaid, and any moment now, she would wake up in the hospital to learn she'd been in a coma for seven years.   
  
That would definitely explain why she heard Adriane's distinct voice calling for a man who had been dead for years to slow down.  
  
She squeezed her eyes shut, imagining how a hospital pillow would feel under her head, the steady chirps of the heart monitor by her bedside, the exclamation of the nurse as she found her long-term patient waking at last.  
  
But when she risked to part her eyelids again, it was not Kyle's excited face she had pressed real close to hers, not his annoying kid's voice hollering in delight to find his number one torture subject his again.  
  
No, she was looking into the opaque eyes of the dwarf child from the storm.  
  
She cried out hoarsely in surprise, pushing herself up onto her arms, only to have them buckle under her, too weak to support her dehydrated fish body.  
  
The child chattered in worry, reaching out to touch her cheek with fingers that burned.  
  
"Zach!" Suddenly, another person swam into her blurry vision, and that's when Kara decided that this sensation had to be her dying. For she could almost make out the strong, sharp features of Adriane's face hovering above her, behind the child she'd called Zach.  
  
"Oh my gosh," the warrior mage breathed in alarm, her feet crunching in the scales that had been shed off of Kara's mermaid body the longer she remained out of water.  
  
Kara blacked out.  
  
%End Flashback%  
  
Later, she had been told that Adriane and Zach had been all for heaving her up and tossing her back into the ocean, if not for the fact that the Fairimentals had blown into existence at the back of the cave right then, and asked them to stop.  
  
Their power having grown stronger, as more and more of Aldenmor was cleansed of the Dark Sorceress's poisoning, the three of them were able to teleport themselves completely out of the Fairy Glen to wherever they were needed.  
  
When Kara woke up, she was in a bed. An actual bed, instead of the sponges that the merfolk used to nap on when they were done celebrating. And she was back in human form, thanks to some special antibodies that fairy specialists had recently concocted for the sole use of lifting the evil witch's spells. Kara's transformation included.  
  
At first, Kara had been overjoyed. The first thing she did after she recovered was travel all over Aldenmor, to see what had changed. To see what she missed when she was trying to talk to the barnacles.  
  
Her journey had come full circle at last.  
  
Water lapped gently over her bare toes, and Kara stifled a gasp. Not that it would have been heard anyway. She felt like after years of being cast out into the snow, she was finally returning to the warmth of the hearth. Life throbbed into her feet, and she immediately stepped further out into the stormy waters. It was intoxicating. She had sorely missed it.  
  
Kara, no! Lyra's feline voice shot through her mind like a splash of cold water in her face (no pun intended). The majestic winged beauty swooped in and made a perfectly neat landing in the sand, her dainty paws sinking right in.  
  
Kara, wait! Where are you going?  
  
The woman paused, and with some effort pulled her thoughts away from the freedom the ocean promised her, turning to meet her bondmate's golden gaze. The fur around her gorgeous eyes was tinged with gray, and her cheeks sagged marginally, the same way her astonishing wings drooped lifelessly in the grit around her. Lyra was getting old.  
  
"I'm going home, Lyra. Aldenmor is doing fine without me as their princess. I would just complicate things. I'm going back where I'm wanted. Back to the people who need me for who I am, not the descendent of a great queen they had loved," she informed her friend.  
  
Lyra looked ready to protest, but the growl died in her throat as her mage arrowed her arms and dived right into the surf, without even once looking back at the land she was giving up. You can always come back, Kara. The human girl is in you forever.  
  
Suddenly, everything was quiet. Kara could still here the rain pound against the surface, but only as if it was from a distance, something she didn't have to worry about anymore. Down here, all was peaceful. It was the kind of calm that got to her as nature at its best. The kind of noiselessness that made her think of her old life as cluttered. Beneath the waves, she had time to think. Time to marvel at the simple beauty of the sea all around her.  
  
Decision made, she reached up with a single finger to touch the ever present unicorn horn strung about her neck. After a moment, it erupted in pearly bright light that wrapped her up in a solid cocoon. She felt, rather than saw, the fancy fairy clothing she was wearing metamorph into the scaly garbs of the merfolk. Felt her legs twine together so tightly she lost feeling of them as being separate. Her feet flattened out into her prized possession; her fin.  
  
Kara opened her eyes, and everything around her snapped into crystal-clear view, as if she was looking from a camera lens, minus the crosshairs. Her lungs filled with salt water, and she felt it slide down her throat like ice cream on a hot day. The delight spread all the way down to her toes -- or, rather, the little sensory hairs on the tip of her fin.  
  
Spreading her arms out in front of her, Kara had never been so happy to see the faint bluegreen webbing between her pale fingers. Heart soaring, the blazing star mage began to swim.  
  
%  
  
An eternity later -- or maybe it was just a few hours -- the blazing star mage descended into the crystal city she had come to call her home. She knew exactly where she was going, and the stares she recieved as she glided past did nothing to stop her. In the next few weeks, months, years -- whatever Time and Luck granted her -- she would get to know each and every one of them, their joys and sorrows, praises and complaints, even their favorite color if she sought to ask. They were her people now.  
  
Somehow, word had gone ahead, and they were waiting for her when she got to their house. They looked older, too, gazing at her with their stark copper eyes as she approached them, followed by a curious swarm of youngsters.  
  
"Honored Omijaj, milady Ellimisa, many greetings and blessings upon your family for generations to come," she greeted them formally, complete with the merfolk bow reserved especially for high officials.  
  
They said nothing, merely bowed back. And then the parents of Alijas stepped aside.  
  
Floating there, pale hands clasped shyly before him, was the perfectly designed form of her future. He was very young; his tail was still the dark emerald green of babyhood. He looked up at her, with large, copper eyes that sparkled like pennies. His hair, a deep, honest shade of blonde, floating around his head in a honey-colored tuff. His tiny lips moved in surprise, but no sound came out.  
  
Kara didn't ask for permission. She took the child into her arms, swearing to herself that she'd never let go again.  
  
After a heartbeat, he returned her embrace with a single whisper, "Mother."  
  
A chapter in the life of the blazing star mage, the Princess of Avalon, was over.  
  
The rest of her life had just begun.  
  
((Phew! That has to be the longest chapter I've ever written. And believe me, I didn't see it ending the way it did XD But now that I think about, once you got rid of her general ditzy-ness, she'd made a good mom .  
  
Anyway, here's the chapter in a nutshell for those of you who can't get their minds around all the no-dialogue: Near end of war, Kara gets changed into a mermaid. Kara not happy. Then Kara meet guy. Kara falls in love with guy. Guy dies. Kara tries to kill herself. Adriane and a namesake to Zach find her. Fairimentals turn her back into human. Kara wander around Aldenmor. Kara not happy. Kara go back to merfolk. Kara find son. Kara happy!  
  
P.S. Errm... let's just say Lorren... died heroically in battle or something tragic like that XD  
  
Now, be good, don't hurt me too much, and review! . Windy: You're asking an awful lot...)) 


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